-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- It used to be a writer wrote something , the program aired , and that was pretty much it .

`` Law & Order : Special Victims Unit '' airs frequently on cable as well as on NBC .

Sure , there was the possibility of syndication , but there were n't cable channels that ran `` Law & Order '' marathons . There were n't DVD box sets of a program 's season-by-season run -- a huge source of revenue .

There were n't video games that began where a TV series left off , or on-demand TiVo subscriptions that allowed viewers to catch up with that episode they missed , or Internet sites that downloaded , highlighted and offered behind-the-scenes glimpses of a 38-second guest-star appearance .

There was n't all this ... technology . And , by the same token , all that technology was n't splitting the audience for TV and movies into smaller and smaller pieces .

Consider how the world has changed since 1988 , the last time the Writers Guild went on strike . `` The Cosby Show '' was America 's No. 1 TV program . Fox , just ending its first season with a weekend-only lineup that included `` 21 Jump Street '' and `` The New Adventures of Beans Baxter , '' was barely a blip on a TV screen dominated by ABC , NBC and CBS . Watch the writers strike in 1988 ''

And if a household had cable -- and just a bare majority did -- channel selections did n't include much beyond CNN , HBO , ESPN , MTV and the Weather Channel . Bruce Springsteen 's song `` 57 Channels -LSB- and Nothin ' On -RSB- '' did n't come out until 1992 . Now Bruce , and the rest of us , are staring at 500 channels and countless media permutations .

About the only thing that 's remained consistent are fickle viewers , who now have more means to channel-surf -- indeed , media-surf -- than ever before . And if they leave their TV shows behind , they might be hard to get back .

`` Once another medium , particularly cable , gets a chance to draw viewers away , they do n't come back , and that was n't the case in 1988 , '' TV historian Tim Brooks told the trade publication Multichannel News . -LRB- Actually , Brooks is a little off : Broadcast viewership did decline slightly after the 1988 strike , according to Multichannel News , and has been trending downward since the early '90s . -RRB-

The catch today is that there are far more media than just cable . Indeed , the media conglomerates have caught on to this fact , allowing viewers to watch programs over the Internet and through podcasts . -LRB- Indeed , with the strike affecting late-night talk shows , movie and music promotion has gravitated to the Web . `` Traditional media needs the exposure on the talk shows , but what they really need is to go where the audience is migrating to , and that is the Internet , '' Jerry Del Colliano , a University of Southern California music-industry professor , told The Associated Press . -RRB-

The residuals due for airing over the Internet is a key issue the writers want tackled .

In a pre-strike post on his New York Times blog , Times technology writer Saul Hansell observed that the Web is a knife that cuts both ways . If the writers get a cut of Web revenues -- an unknown value since nobody knows what Web syndication is worth -- the value of broadcast and cable syndication could decline . Or if the price the writers receive is perceived to be too high , new , nonunion talent could establish a beachhead .

Or , he adds , `` bored viewers may suddenly start deep explorations of puppy punting and other specialties of YouTube . '' Watch a writer talk about how `` nobody wins '' ''

Robert Thompson , the Syracuse University pop culture expert , doubts things will come to that : `` When you think about the shows we loved best ... they were told by brilliant writers , '' he told Multichannel News . `` I think the industry is going to have to cede that fundamental basic value , and in doing so cede some of the real estate of these new technologies . ''

Certainly , there 's always going to be a market for well-told stories . `` There is no dream until we dream it . There is no word written until we write it , '' the commentator and science fiction writer Harlan Ellison -LRB- `` Babylon 5 , '' the story `` A Boy and His Dog , '' the TV column collection `` The Glass Teat '' -RRB- told CNN during the 1988 strike .

But the earlier strike -- which began March 7 of that year , lasted 22 weeks , postponed the beginning of the 1988-89 TV season and cost an estimated $ 500 million -- gave rise to a group of low-budgeted shows , including `` America 's Most Wanted , '' `` Cops '' and `` America 's Favorite Home Videos , '' which became the forerunners of the reality show trend .

Reality shows , of course , are now one of TV 's most prominent genres . They 're generally inexpensive to produce -- and , as many writers noticed during the reality craze earlier this decade , they do n't need writers .

So there 's a lot at stake . And watch out : On June 30 , 2008 , the contract for TV and film actors comes up for renewal . E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2007 CNN . All rights reserved.This material may not be published , broadcast , rewritten , or redistributed . Associated Press contributed to this report .

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Electronic media has changed a great deal since the last strike in 1988

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Broadcast TV viewers could gravitate elsewhere , away from TV altogether

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Cut of Internet revenues at stake , but that value remains an unknown